Byte Size Review

When 900 words is too much and about 250 will do.

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Byte Size – God Eater 3

Richard Armitt 1130 Views ,  , 

The God Eater series is not something I am familiar with, lets have that out in the open. As a sci-fi soap opera, I’m sure it would be interesting to delve into, but as it stands being a virgin in the God Eater universe I’m a little more dazed and confused than leading the charge.

The Good – There’s a deep sci-fi canon on offer if you can listen to the dialogue, and the unfeasible weapons are impressive. The bullet building feature is the highlight.

The Bad – Angsty teen styled dialogue, overly complex controls and too much to remember.

The Ugly – The graphics need a decent feed. Combat missions are way too short.

The combat is fun to a point, but given some of the controls and the reliance on remembering how or when to use certain combos it never really gets past the hack and slash approach for me.

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Byte Size – Riot: Civil Unrest, PS4 Review

Guy 1151 Views ,  , 

Living in New Zealand in 2019, I don’t tend to be exposed to large scale civil unrest. So as a resident of gods-own, Riot: Civil Unrest immediately caught my attention, for being about something I have little knowledge or experience of,  and frankly it is one of the more unique ideas for a video game I have seen in recent months.

The Good – The scenarios are based around real world incidents, including ‘The Arab Spring’ and the game is nuanced enough, even with its limited art style, to relay how difficult civil unrest is on both sides of the riot line.

The Bad – At times the 8bit art style looks great with cleverly designed sprites, but it very quickly becomes a blur of activity and it is hard at times to know whats going on.

The Ugly – The designers have made a strategy game with only one way to approach any given scenario to properly win, which for an RTS, takes the fun of choice away.

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Byte Size – Hitman 2 Review (Xbox One X)

Barrie Clarke 1294 Views

So everybody’s favourite barcoded bald badass is back and kicking things off in Hawkes Bay, here in good old New Zealand. Who knew we were such a haven for bad guys? Anyone who can make a shaved head and red tie look this good has got my attention, that is for sure. Assuming most, if not all gamers out there will have at least heard of Agent 47.

The Good – Well it’s Hitman isn’t it.

The Bad – If I had to pick on something it would have to be the visuals. Hitman 2, even with One X Enhancements, looks a bit dated.

The Loose Steering Wheel – As you can imagine, there is more than one way to skin a cat, or in this case knock off a bad dude along with other variables in each mission. This means more than a few plays through each assignment will be required.

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Byte Size ReviewPS4PSNetworkPSVR

Byte Size – Gungrave VR, PSVR Review

Guy 1304 Views ,  ,  , 

Initially I knew nothing about Gungrave, but after a quick Google Search, I came to understand that this is a long standing Anime franchise from Japan and it has had a single video game release back in 2002 on the PS2.

Gungrave’s overarching story is about Brandon Heat or ‘Grave’, a reincarnated death dealer who seeks revenge on evil syndicates and baddies and …well you get the idea.

The Good – There isn’t any. Maybe the character model of Grave, it looks quite good at times, and the tutorial is quite good. But that’s about it.

The Bad – The shooting feels slow, the enemies are mindless cannon fodder and the whole game lacks any identity.

The Ugly – It’s just not fun. Nothing in the game adds anything to the brilliantly immersive VR gaming-space.

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Byte Size – Beat Saber, PSVR Review

Guy 1456 Views ,  , 

With Playstation VR going from strength to strength in 2018 though, it seemed only matter of time before an immersive music-based game would raise its virtual head. Low and behold, little known Czech-based developer Beat Games have done just that.

The Good- Beat Saber is a game where the whole family can play….and more importantly, WANT to play. It is unique, easy to understand and fun. There is no motion sickness, looks great and even works as light physical exercise. My wife is NOT (yes in capitals)… not a gamer, and she loves this game.

The Bad – The music selection is very limited, which is a big deal for a music rhythm game. None of the songs you will likely know, and worse you cannot add custom music like our PC cousins can.

The Ugly – At $48.95 it’s pretty expensive when compared to some of the other amazing titles on offer on PSVR.

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Byte Size – Titanic VR, PSVR

Richard Armitt 1305 Views , 

History can’t go past the sinking of the Titanic, it is a story that will run and run, obviously there is the support from Hollywood in various guises and the potential for Mr Clive Palmer and his ambitious reconstruction of actual Titanic v2.

What VR Education have done is taken their Kickstarter project and delivered the all too familiar story with some historical accuracy, wrapped up in a VR learning experience.

The Good – Enjoy an otherwise out of reach experience first hand.

The Bad – The cinematic story is a bit cheesy.

The Ugly – Textures could be crisper, but that’s not so bad.

Titantic VR, may not be perfect but it ticks some boyhood boxes for me and is a good use of twenty bucks.

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Byte Size – Dark Souls Remastered, PS4 Review

Richard Armitt 1739 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

Love it, hate it or avoid it like the plague – Dark Souls has influenced the last decade, I first reviewed it on PS3 for long gone website Buttonmasher. Back then it was a breath of fresh air, a game that dared to challenge you, make you play against high risk for a bit less reward.

Back then the game brought innovation and didn’t pander to the soft hearted PS3 owners that couldn’t understand why a pause didn’t pause the game or why they couldn’t quick-save at will. I applauded the game for those things, even though I struggled to progress and to be honest still do.

The Good – Look, its a classic game make no mistake.

The Bad – The HD process hasn’t added much and in comparison to recent games it just feels s…l…o…w…

The Ugly – Boss fights, Boss fights are ugly and unfair and repetitive and just not my cup of tea. Anymore.

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Byte Size – Farming Simulator 19 (Xbox One X)

Barrie Clarke 1310 Views ,  , 

Bit of a niche title this one. So I thought I would try out our new ‘byte size’ review format.

The Farming Simulator franchise has been around for a while now and in doing so proves that there is a market for simulated farming. Who knows, with all the millions of dollars of equipment replicated in the game maybe it is real farmers just wanting to play with the fancy tools of their trade.

The Good – Toys!

The Bad – Clunky controls

The Ugly – It’s a bit like watching grass grow…

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Byte Size – when 300 words are enough

Richard Armitt 1413 Views ,  , 

We’ve been writing about games for quite some time in one publication or another and given the obvious changes in culture over those years it makes sense for us to re-evaluate how best to deliver our thoughts.

We have traditionally targeted 800 – 900 words for an average length review, sometimes its easy to be tighter and sometimes its easy to run will up to 1,500 words if the mood takes you. But here’s the rub.

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